


No Ballads

by downjune



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, That Gets Confusing for Exes, Typical Hockey Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-22
Updated: 2019-05-22
Packaged: 2020-03-05 16:23:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18832282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/downjune/pseuds/downjune
Summary: “I thought—I thought it was just hockey, you know? And we’d work out our shit on the ice, and it’d be okay, and I’d get over this. But that wasn't how it felt, at all.”





	No Ballads

**Author's Note:**

  * For [theladyscribe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theladyscribe/gifts).



> Thank you for giving me the opportunity to write this 'ship!! I <3 them!
> 
> Story based on [this moment](https://itstartledme.tumblr.com/post/184879431255/maljic-best-friends). I like [this moment](https://itstartledme.tumblr.com/post/156934327385/intermissionpenguins-020217-rust-and) much better, though.
> 
> See endnote for a content warning.

Bryan knew his job was violent. Obviously, he knew. He’d iced his face and knuckles enough to have no delusions—hockey players punched each other when things got intense. They shoved each other into walls on purpose. 

But standing in his kitchen, down three games to the Isles and staring elimination right in the eyeballs, Bryan’s guts twisted and his skin prickled like…like… well, like his ex-boyfriend had shoved him around and messed him up a little. His hands shook from that ugly kind of adrenalin wearing off, that sickbetrayedscared kind. That bad kind.

Slamming his freezer door, he blew out a sharp breath and decided he wanted heat, not ice, on his neck. He retreated to his den and flopped down onto his couch. His heating pad already lay helpfully draped over the arm of the couch, so he rested his neck and shoulders against it and clicked it on. He clicked on the TV next and proceeded to not watch it, eyes glazed and dry, blurry when he blinked.

Each time they closed, Tom was behind him, his body big and familiar—welcome and confusing—and a threat. Bryan’s stomach clenched and his fingers reflexively tightened into a fist around the remote. 

He wanted to hit back. Two hours too late, he wanted to get himself turned around and shove off the boards and _hit back_. Not stand there pinned. Not twist around like an idiot while his teammates all sat there wondering what the fuck he was waiting for. 

Not that any of those guys had known. Nobody knew that he and Tom used to be more than best friends. Bryan wasn't sure which was more embarrassing—his oldest teammates or these new faces seeing him like that. 

Not that it mattered—everyone had seen. Bryan shut his eyes, and Tom was right there again.

~*~

_He spread his knees a little wider, and Tom sank in behind him on a groan, his head dipping down to rest between Bryan’s shoulder blades. The chill of his gold chain pooled on Bryan’s skin._

_“Fuck, you feel so good,” he said, fingers flexing around Bryan’s hip._

_Face in his pillow, Bryan shoved up enough to press his cheek against his forearm and moan a sound of deep appreciation. Tom was all over him—legs on either side of Bryan’s, body pressing him down—and in him. Tom had the best dick in the whole, wide world, and Bryan was the guy lucky enough to have it in his ass any time they had the time. Which, granted, wasn’t all that often during the season, but when they could, holy shit. He couldn’t even talk._

_He didn’t need to talk. Tommy fucked him like they’d been at this for years—like he knew Bryan inside and out, knew him like his high school locker combination. It was the kind of sex that put hookups to shame._

_Tom kissed Bryan’s shoulders and nibbled the sensitive, elastic skin right by his armpit and reached down between his legs to stroke his dick. Bryan let out a sharp sound, and Tom moved on, knowing that was too much for him. He slid his hand farther down to Bryan’s balls and to that spot right where he was stretched around Tom’s dick._

_“Yes,” Bryan managed on a gasp, and Tommy held him there, fingers spread around his own dick, the heel of his palm pressing Bryan’s balls flat against his body. Bryan’s eyes were already shut tight when he turned blindly and bit the inside of his arm and shot all over the bed._

_Tom groaned, and Bryan felt it all up and down his spine. “’M gonna come,” he murmured, and did, shoving into Bryan and breathing harshly against his skin. They stayed there like that, drawing the moment out, as pulse and breath slowed._

_After, when they’d cleaned up a little, they lay face-to-face, knees bumped together, and Bryan soaked up the naked affection in Tom’s eyes. He knew he looked just as gone, too. That was the thing, though—if you both looked like goofballs, it wasn’t embarrassing._

_“We’re so lucky,” Tom said, voice just loud enough to carry to Bryan’s ears. “What did we do to get so lucky? Which stars had to align for this?”_

_“No stars,” Bryan said. “Just Pens scouting.”_

_Tom shook his head. “No, I think maybe some stars. Of all the places we could end up, both of us are here.”_

_Which, to Bryan, was still down to Penguins scouting, but he saw no point disagreeing over the sequence of events that had led to their happiness. “I love you,” he said quietly, not for the first time, but it was new enough he could still keep count. He could still remember each time and the way Tom smiled and flushed._

_“Forever,” Tom answered, because after one Cup together and playoffs just around the corner, why not another? Why not forever?_

~*~

Bryan didn’t look at him in the handshake line. They’d been at each other’s throats the whole series, vicious and personal and ugly, and Bryan wouldn’t lift his gaze long enough to make eye contact after they got swept. Tom’s hand was cold and sweaty in his for that moment they were skin-to-skin. 

Not looking at him felt like the only victory of the whole damn series. 

Bryan could hardly breathe around the lump in his throat, so he stuck to the middle of the pack, let his team circle around him, and retreated to the locker room. He thought briefly of telling Murr everything. No one knew he and Tom had been together for close to three years, but Matt would understand and support him. Hell, he’d probably invite Bryan to the lake house again this summer, and Bryan could tag along until he and Chris kicked him out.

But he kept his mouth shut, and told himself it was because he would have stuttered the shit out of any explanation. They’d kept their relationship a secret; why blow it now it was over? And after cleanout, he drove home to Detroit in silence, too, lacking the energy to find a soundtrack for his mood. He didn’t even mind the relentlessly boring expanse of Ohio. It captured his feelings well enough.

But when he’d rounded the corner of Lake Erie and headed north on Rt. 75, the need to see water pressed him off the highway. He waited until he’d crossed into Michigan, then exited in Grand View. He rolled down his windows and breathed in the thick, early-spring air as the lake spread out in front of him. 

Hockey hadn’t been over this early for him since college, so he noticed a few things, never having been an adult at loose ends at this time of year before. First, everything was still gray and brown and ugly from winter. Second, everything except the lakeside willow trees. They’d come out in a delicate shade of green that made Bryan feel vulnerable and let him know that, without a doubt, he was still in love. Which led him to third—he needed to have a really good plan to survive this spring if the Isles went deep in the playoffs and Tom’s handsome, terrible face was all over the hockey news like it had been for their series. Bryan didn’t think he could survive that.

~*~

_“But it’s not…it’s barely long-distance. You’re one state over. You spend your summers on another continent—this is nothing.”_

_“We’ll never see each other, you know that. It’s not going to be like it was.”_

_Tom was clean-shaven and thick with off-season muscle, his skin a light brown from the summer sun. The last Bryan had seen him was Detroit Metro Airport, sending him home to Germany two weeks after losing to the Capitals in the second round. He’d been pale and lanky with the same ragged beard as the rest of the team. But he’d come home with Rusty right after playoffs, and it’d felt like the next step was to—to start thinking long-term. The long game. Commitments. Rings, maybe. Even though they’d both known Tom might not get an offer from the Pens this summer. Especially because of that._

_“It doesn’t have to be like it was,” Bryan offered. “It can be different, right? Anytime we’re in Jersey or Philly or New York or, hell, Boston—we can see each other. We can make it work. We can make it fun!” He didn’t like the pleading note in his voice, but it was the least of his problems right then._

_Tom cast around Bryan’s living room, and that was anger in his posture, in the rigid set of his shoulders. It’d been there at Detroit Metro, but Bryan hadn’t recognized it then. Tom had sold his house this summer—had everything packed up and put in storage without setting foot in Pittsburgh. Now here he was with a moving van and—_

_He shook his head. “I don’t want to drag this out. I have to move on.”_

_“What the fuck does that mean?” Bryan pushed some of his own anger into his voice._

_Tom rolled his eyes. “What do you think it means?” He scratched a hand through his hair and let out a harsh, brittle laugh. “It’s over, Bryan. It’s been over since July. I wanted—I just wanted to tell you in person.”_

_Bryan’s brain and throat both froze at the meanness in Tom's expression. He could think of nothing to say, and Tom didn’t stick around._

_They both had to report to camp soon, but Tom had to get all his shit first and haul it to New York. He had to start over in the biggest fucking city in the country, and he had to do it alone._

_Bryan watched him leave, panic dumping his heart into his stomach and pumping acid through his arteries. Three years, over, like that. _Snap_. When Tom drove away, that’d be it. No taking it back. _

_He thought he might throw up._

_Instead, he ran out onto his front steps like a fucking moron and shouted for Tom to stop. His voice shook in his throat, and in the reflection of Tom’s side mirror, Bryan could see Tom’s face, see that his eyes were red and his cheeks flushed a hectic pink. But he didn’t stop the car. He didn’t get out and come back to Bryan and beg to erase what he’d just done. His tires squealed as he pulled out of the driveway, and he didn’t look back again._

~*~

Murr did invite him up to his lake house, but when the Isles flopped out of the second round as gracelessly as the Pens had the first, Bryan bailed last-minute and promised he’d make it up later in the summer. Anyway, the spring so far had been cold as balls, so why would he want to go to Ontario, where it’d just snowed a bunch more? He didn’t.

Neither did he want to look for Tom’s cleanout day interview online, but he found that temptation much harder to resist. Impossible, actually.

Only there wasn’t one. Tommy Kuhnhackl apparently hadn’t warranted one, even with his solid playoff performance. Bryan supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised. With only a one-year contract set to expire in two months, who knew where Tom would be next season? Hell, even with his four-year deal, after a postseason like this one, Bryan didn’t know where he could end up.

The truth of the situation hit him like—well, like a hit. Bruising and bone-rattling. 

He picked up his phone and dialed, fearing that Tom was already on a plane to Germany. 

But he answered after two rings. “Hi.” And said nothing else.

“Hey… uh.” Bryan flushed, utterly planless. “It’s Rusty.”

Tom made a quiet, possibly wet noise. “I know. What’s up?”

“Where are you?” Bryan asked, sans-chill. “Are you still in the States?”

“Uh.” Tom sniffed—he was absolutely crying. “Yeah. But I’m at the airport.”

“Really?” Bryan’s heart sank. “Headed home already, huh?”

“Well.” Tom exhaled a laugh. “Playoffs kinda sucked. So I was gonna come see you.”

“ _Really_?” Bryan echoed himself, but this time his pulse kicked into high gear. “Seriously?”

“Yeah, I was gonna—” He sniffed again. “I was gonna surprise you so you couldn’t say no, but I guess you caught me.” 

It was the first they’d spoken since that horrible day in September. Not technically true—they’d yelled awful shit at each other across the ice—but Bryan didn’t count that stuff. Talking to Tom now, he could hear the faint lilt of his accent. He could picture Tom hunched in a crappy LaGuardia chair at his gate. 

“I understand if you don’t want to see me,” Tom said. “I was—I was such an asshole to you, and I’m so, so sorry, Bry.”

Bryan shook his head. “Hey, hey, come on. Take it easy, babe.” 

The silence on the other end invited him to replay what he’d just said. _Fuck_. They’d been broken up for…almost eight months, and the first civil conversation they had, look what he went and did.

“Uh, sorry. What I meant was, don’t lose your shit in the nation’s worst airport. Come to Detroit and lose it here.”

“I was going to.” Tom might have been smiling now.

“Okay, right. Cool. Well, uh. When does your flight get in?”

“Six.”

“I’ll be there.”

*

Seeing him again after a season apart and a bitter playoff series, Bryan half-hoped all would be forgiven and they’d slam into each other’s arms like something out of a movie. But Bryan spotted him first in baggage claim, and the bitter tang at the back of his throat kept him rooted to the spot. He shifted his weight and rubbed the back of his neck, not sure if he was ready to forgive anything. He’d survived this season without Tom. He could move on if he chose to. If he had to. 

When Knuckles had his suitcase, he spun in place until he found Bryan, and when their eyes locked, Bryan’s throat got thick. The wheels of Tom’s suitcase whirred and clicked along the tiled floor as he approached, and Bryan braced himself for that hug. But Tom stopped a safe two paces out, uncertainty all over his face. 

“Hi,” he said. “Thanks for seeing me.”

Bryan nodded. _You’re welcome_ felt wrong, but he couldn’t think of the right thing. “Wanna come back to my place?” he offered instead.

“Yes, please,” Tom answered quickly. They didn’t hug on the way out to the car. 

*

“I thought—I thought it was just hockey, you know? And we’d work out our shit on the ice, and it’d be okay, and I’d get over this. But that wasn’t how it felt, at all.” Tom said this quietly to the windshield as Bryan drove them home.

“Yeah.” Bryan cleared his throat. “It didn’t feel like hockey to me, either. It felt shitty—like shitty relationship stuff. On ice.” 

Tom huffed quietly. “Not the best place. Maybe the worst, actually. I just felt like I had so much to prove. To my new team and to the guys, and to you.” He shot Bryan a quick look. “If I ever touch you that way again—” He shook his head, or maybe it was a shiver, and looked away. “I’m sorry.”

Bryan’s grip on the steering wheel loosened as his shoulders dropped. “Thanks,” he murmured. “For saying that.”

“I’m never gonna get a big contract,” Tom said, eyes on his hands in his lap. “It’s going to be like this—one-year deals until I go to the European league.”

Bryan pulled into his neighborhood and onto his street without knowing what to say to that, though it didn’t feel out of the blue. He waited Tom out and pulled into the garage. 

“Two days before free agency, you got your four years,” Tom finally said in the dim silence of the garage. “I won’t ever have that. I was so angry and jealous—I couldn’t be in your house. I couldn’t be in the same room with you. And it was so much worse because we were together.”

Bryan swallowed. “Yeah. I get that.” What hockey player didn’t understand that jealousy? Someone always had the coach’s eye, got the better minutes, the better scholarship, the better contract. “I guess the question is, where does it leave us?” He shifted in his seat to look at Tom. 

Tom shot him a quick, sad, hopeful smile. “The question for me is, what if… I don’t go to Europe? What if I stay with you?” He shrugged. “What if that’s more important to me?”

They were both still wearing their seatbelts, and that felt significant. Bryan fiddled with the buckle of his. It was probably a bad idea to climb over the console and into Tom’s lap this soon. He had to think this through. “I really missed you, Tommy,” he said. “The thought of us never being together again was a fucking nightmare all season, so I tried not to think about it—three years, just over. And then it really sucked playing against you, which was my fault too. So.” He took a deep breath. “What if you married me and we just… did that, and then you could get however many contracts you want and play for as long as you want, and know that you’re always coming home to the same place.”

Yeah, that wasn’t moving too quickly or anything. Nailed it.

The click-release of Tom’s seatbelt cut the silence, and Tom was clambering into his lap, hands gentle on his face. His ass honked the horn, and they both laughed. Good thing Bryan had gone for the luxury SUV instead of the sports car as his first big purchase.

“Yeah, let’s do that," Tom said. "Let’s do that." 

**Author's Note:**

> Hockey players using violence to work through the emotional aftermath of a relationship, which might step over the line into unhealthy/abusive behavior for some.
> 
> [Tumblr!](https://itstartledme.tumblr.com/)


End file.
